I noticed a lot of interviews are heavily scenario based, especially with the foreign outfits such as Emirates, Cathay, etc.

I think the scenario based questions are close to useless. Why? Well, when it comes to law (for example), a scenario based question would be objected on because it would be deemed hypothetical.

Also, it's easy to go over scenarios in an air conditioned conference room but with real scenarios, there are tons of variables that are not considered in a real emergency.

Just my two cents. What do you think?

 

I think you're wrong. There are people out there who can memorize gouge like nothing doing, but couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag under pressure (some foreign airlines seem to employ a lot of these, folks with exemplary test scores).

It typically measures your knowledge the use of aviation information resources (since such scenarios typically involve WX products, other crew, etc), and more importantly your ability to think under pressure. And it doesn't cost much to do.

 

^^^What he said...

Open-Ended, Scenario based questions also evaluate Correlation, which if you recall from FOI is the highest level of learning.

 

I'm not a huge fan of scenario based questions, or at the least, I take them with a grain of salt sometimes, because often the "conclusion" or "outcome" that is hoped for by the person asking the question fails to take in all the possible iterations, combinations, external factors and decision making processes that could lead to alternative outcomes. Alternatives that are just as reasonable as what the person asking the question was hoping for, except the pitfall here is when you are asking the question, it is very difficult to avoid "tunnel vision" in the scenario, hoping that the person answering the question is going to get to the pre-determined conclusion that you thought of before-hand. That's the problem with open-ended questions, they may not get to the result you had in mind. Very simple scenarios can therefore be better than more complex ones. IMO, the more complex the scenario, the more of these pitfalls exist and the less objective it becomes. Scenarios have their usefulness, but I've seen them blown way out of proportion as well.

I am a huge fan of actual scenarios, such as when presented in a sim.

 

I noticed a lot of scenario questions are asked by HR type individuals who have no actual flying experience.

 

"...are you a pilot? No? Then you don't know what the f you're talking about be quiet" -Denzel Washington, hero over Georgia